


In This Light, I Can't Even Look At You

by Emmalyne (orphan_account)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 12:13:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3446777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Emmalyne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan takes Adam to the Barns a second time, in the middle of the night. Mature content in later chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was so, so empty.

It was a week after they’d discovered the cave of animals under Cabeswater. They had driven Mallory back to the airport, and now Monmouth seemed eerily quiet in comparison. Ronan certainly didn’t miss the man, but it was disconcerting all the same. As much as he loved Monmouth, and as much as he was grateful for the opportunity to live here instead of spending twelve months a year holed up in Aglionby housing, this place would still never be home. The Barns was the place where his soul belonged. It was where he had grown up, where he had played with Matthew in the fields and sat with him on the soft grass making rude jokes about Declan. It was strange how much he still wanted his old family home, when none of his family actually inhabited it anymore. Gansey was his family now, and Gansey was at Monmouth. But still, Ronan longed for home. It was as if the memories of his childhood were permanently imprinted in the air of the place, giving it an aura of innocence that Ronan could not seem to recapture unless he was standing there in the flesh.

He was sick of going home alone, though. Maybe he didn't have to.

He retrieved the keys to his BMW - and there was another reminder of his father, they were everywhere, in everything Ronan did and in everything Ronan was - and padded quietly across the floor to the exit. He closed the door behind him as quitely as he could, not slamming it for what was quite likely the first time Ronan Lynch had ever closed a door without slamming it. He got into his car, put the key in the ignition. Would Adam still be awake? He backed out of the drive. What if Adam didn't want to come? He was always whining about Ronan coming over so late and interrupting the admittedly small amount of sleep that he got in comparison to Ronan. Adam always seemed to verbalize this as if it were Ronan's fault that Ronan was rich and he was not. Ronan thought about what his life would have been like if he had grown up in Adam's family instead of his own. He would have probably turned out just like Kavinsky. Unstable abilities and a bitter desire for control were nasty bedfellows.

Ronan arrived at St. Agnes. He considered going into the main part of the church before going to see Adam, but would probably end up sitting there all night if he did, losing his nerve more and more the closer it got to morning - and thus the angrier Adam would be if Ronan woke him. Enough of this. Ronan got out of the car and stalked up the stairs to Adam's apartment. He knocked three times, and when there was no immediate answer, knocked again much louder and more aggressively. Finally, Adam came to the door. There were bags under his eyes and his dusty hair was sticking up a bit strangely in places, but he was beautiful all the same. Beautiful, and probably totally, completely straight. He had fallen hard enough for Blue, anyway. Ronan recalled the first few weeks of Blue and Adam's relationship, Adam continually calling to talk to Gansey about this little dating tabboo and that little courtship convention, Ronan standing awakwardy to the side but always paying attention. And there had been Blue just appearing in a room and having the effect on Adam that Ronan could only achieve through calculated planning, a series of strategic little hints. Ronan had not taken kindly to the introduction of Blue Sargent to their group.

"Hey," said Adam. He seemed unimpressed that Ronan was here, and he seemed very tired. He was wearing only a black pair of sweatpants and seemed to have been attempting to sleep when Ronan had arrived.

"Hey yourself," Ronan said. Adam raised his eyebrows.

"Want to go for a drive, Parrish?" Ronan continued.

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Where?"

"Where do you think?"

Adam smiled ruefully and shook his head a little. "I suppose there really is nothing I could say to make you go away, so I might as well go with you."

"That's the spirit, Parrish." Adam rummaged around in his closet a bit for some warmer clothes and a jacket, although Ronan would have preferred if Adam had remained shirtless. Ronan leaned against the door frame the whole time, watching him, not even bothering to make it subtle. He remembered a time not so long ago when every glance he gave Adam was a gift to himself, an indulgence, and possibly a sin. Now, though, any tool he had at his disposal to make Adam see what was going on here, what Ronan wanted, was invaluable. So he stared, because staring was a talent of his.

"Hurry up, loser. I want to get there before morning," Ronan said. Instead of rolling his eyes in response to this as he usually would, Adam just looked frustrated.

"Stop saying things you don't mean," he said. Ronan had no idea how to reply to this, so he didn't.

They walked down the stairs to his BMW in silence. Ronan began to open the passenger door, when Adam furrowed his eyebrows said, "wait, you're letting me drive?"

"In your dreams," Ronan said. "I was getting the door for you."

"Oh," Adam said, with a tiny self-concious laugh. Ronan fought the urge to pull Adam towards him and lavish him with kisses right then and there. He had to be so careful, though. One little misstep, one gesture that freaked Adam out, and he would blow it all up. This carefully constructed balance, this mysterious thing between them. It was very difficult for Ronan Lynch to be careful.

Ronan was still holding open the car door, but Adam wasn't getting in. He had a very thoughtful look on his face, and then...

"You know what?" Adam said. "Fuck this. You come drag me out of my apartment at one in the morning when we have school tomorrow so you can make me come with you on some field trip to your abandoned childhood home and you can't even let me drive? I want to drive." Adam had only driven Ronan's car once, and that had been in a parking lot with Ronan instructing him and Adam failing miserably. Ronan hoped that Adam had improved in this area since the last time. All this knowledge of the intimate details of how the machines ran, and he wasn't even very good at driving them.

"Fine," Ronan said. Adam looked pleased with himself, as if he had expected to have to put up more of a fight for it, but he just smiled, nodded, and started walking around the car.

"But you can get your own fucking door this time," Ronan yelled from the passenger seat of the BMW.

* * *  
Adam drove. It was an hour to Singer's Falls, through progressively rougher terrain, and it made Ronan a little nervous to think of how Adam would be able to manage his father's car then. But he let him drive, because for all of his talk, he could never say no to Adam.

Ronan dug his mp3 player out of the glovebox and plugged it in, selecting one of the more obnoxious tracks.

"Ronan," Adam said, and Ronan was almost too distracted by the way his name sounded coming from Adam's lips that it took him an embarrassingly long time to ask, "what?"

Adam smiled. "Turn that off," he said. Ronan just looked at him, waiting for a reason.

"It doesn't really suit, you know?" Adam said. "Look around you. Look outside. It's so peaceful. Don't ruin it."

Ronan removed his gaze from Adam's beautiful face and stared out the window. If Virginia was lovely during the day, that was nothing compared to how it was at night. Especially to Ronan, who found everything more lovely when it was swathed in darkness. Most of the trees had shed their leaves by this time of year, and their skeletal forms glowed under the light of the full moon. The headlights of the BMW illuminated the narrow, winding road ahead. This outer world felt just like a metaphor for Ronan's inner one. He shut off the music.

"So, you know, we could talk," Adam suggested. "I mean, you obviously did want company or you wouldn't have bothered waking me up." He kept smiling in this ridiculous way, like he found Ronan a lot funnier than he should. Ronan just hoped it wasn't for the wrong reasons.

"Okay, Parrish," he said. "What do you want to talk about?"

Adam turned away from the road and looked at Ronan, still smirking. "You tell me," he said.

Ronan thought about it for a minute. Somehow all roads seemed to lead back to this one topic, even when Gansey wasn't with them.

"Do you think we'll ever find Glendower?" he asked.

"I never really thought that you cared," Adam said.

"I don't, really," Ronan said. "I mean, and you don't need him anymore, because you're almost done with Aglionby now anyway. And Gansey just wanted to find something crazy...and he found Gwen. That seems rather sufficient."

Adam laughed. "You're starting to sound like Dick," he said, and then they were both laughing.

"I don't know, man," Adam said finally.

"What?"

"The answer to your question, stupid," Adam said. "If we'll ever find Glendower." Then the timbre of his voice changed just slightly, and he said, "We still need to though."

Ronan didn't pry. He'd kept enough secrets of his own to know that if someone didn't want to share them, they wouldn't be shared. Adam had never explicitly told him his reason for wanting to find Glendower, but he had talked enough about that royal favor that it had been a pretty logical step for Ronan to imagine the general reasoning behind Adam's attraction to it. But that had been a while ago, and even if Adam's life was hard now, it wasn't as hard as it had been then. He was so close to making it. Ronan couldn't understand how Adam could be so stupid about his pride when it was Gansey offering to help, and yet be so amenable to the idea of accepting aid from a a magical source. Shouldn't Adam be happy now that he was so close to graduating and receiving his golden ticket from Aglionby without anyone's help? Why did he still want to find Glendower now, now when he barely needed it?  
Adam, having waited long enough for Ronan to respond, spoke again.

"Why do you want to find Glendower?" he asked Ronan. "I mean, you obviously must want to at least a little bit, or you wouldn't help Gansey so much with it."

Ronan shrugged. "It's kind of fun, you know? Seeing Gansey get all excited over it. It's something to do. Like, what else would I do?"

"Things you enjoy?" Adam suggested.

"I don't know what I enjoy," Ronan said.

"You like cars," Adam said.

"Can't drive cars all day, Parrish."

"Why not? It's not like you need to make a living or anything. You could, theoretically."

"Yeah, well...there are other things I care about," Ronan said.

"Like what?" Adam asked, and his vision flickered to Ronan's lips.

"Like nothing," Ronan said. He looked out the window, away from the heat of Adam's gaze. "We're almost there. Just go left at that road up there and..."

"I know where to go," Adam said.

"Okay."

They were silent for the rest of the drive, Ronan staring sullenly out the window and Adam tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Ronan cursed himself for his skittishness. He should be accepting every lingering look from Adam as a gift, an opportunity, not just throwing them away.

Then they arrived at the long driveway to the Barns, and Ronan's thoughts were wrenched away from Adam as the kick of his pulse drowned out his other thoughts: he was here, he was home, and it was beautiful, beautiful. A thick grove of trees pressed in around the drive, moonlight filtering through the canopy of their leaves. Bushes with poisonous berries had choked out most of the grass, and wildflowers were bursting up through cracks in the road. It was like driving into the deep darkness of the sky, on and on until you would be swallowed up by infinity. He didn't blink; he didn't want to miss a second of this. He had started returning home more and more often since amending his father's will, but his body reacted the same way every time, with a rush of nerves and adrenaline.

Adam was looking at him strangely.

"Ronan...I get it," he said, and there was that smile again.


	2. Chapter 2

It was darker outside than it had been on the road in. Ronan used his phone as a flashlight to guide them up the steps to the front door, which Adam suspected was mostly for his benefit, as Ronan could doubtless navigate this path blindfolded. He felt kind of rebellious sneaking into this place at night, which was ridiculous because no one even lived here anymore, and technically this property was owned by Ronan.

Ronan would live here some day. Ronan would live here until he died, probably. Adam felt a tension inside him release at that - even if Gansey would leave Henrietta, Ronan would never wander far. Adam, who had endured so much upheaval in his life this year, found he was intensely relieved by this. He watched the way Ronan walked, slinking along the path like a cat. There was a lithe way that he moved that Adam always found out of place with the coarse manner in which he spoke. His lean and muscled form was beautiful in the dark night. He fit right into this place.

Ronan got to the door, and pulled some keys out of his pocket. They went inside, and Ronan flicked on a light.

"Ow," Adam said, wincing. "That hurts my eyes."

"Oh my God," said Ronan, but he shut the light off and turned on a small lamp instead.

"Thanks," Adam said.

"Whatever, dude."

Adam kicked off his shoes and tossed them in the corner next to Ronan's combat boots. He located a clock; it read _2:13 AM_. Ronan closed the door behind Adam and locked it. Adam raised his eyebrows.

"Afraid of monsters, Lynch?" he joked. Then he realized with a jolt that it had been the completely wrong thing to say. Ronan stared at him for a moment.

"You would be too," he said.

Adam decided that the best course of action would be a change of topic. "What do you want to do?"

Ronan bit his lip thoughtfully and looked around the house. "I would say get drunk," he said, "but that's not really your thing, so..."

Now it was Adam's turn to be uncomfortable. He supposed he deserved it. "Um, we could..." he began, but Ronan interrupted.

"Hey, man, we don't have to. There's a lot to do here."

"Well, I'm afraid I can't help you with what you usually do here," Adam said. "Not all of us are quite so talented as you."

Instead of replying, Ronan led the way into the kitchen. "You want, like, a glass of water or anything?" he asked.

"Sure," Adam replied, because at least it would give them something to do, if only for a minute. After his epiphany a few weeks ago about Ronan's stolen glances at him - and maybe subconciously, he'd been aware of it much longer than that - he wasn't sure how to act around Ronan. He did his best not to treat Ronan any differently than he had before, because he knew how much it would hurt Ronan if he did. And as unbelievable as it would have been to him only a few months ago, Adam's friendship with Ronan Lynch was incredibly important to him. Probably even more important to him than his friendship with Gansey. He certainly spent more time around Ronan than Gansey...

"Here," Ronan said, handing Adam the glass. Their fingers brushed, and Adam wondered if Ronan had done that on purpose. After a minute of standing there both looking at Ronan and not looking at him, Ronan asked, "so, are you going to drink that or...?"

"Yeah," Adam said, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat. "Yeah," he repeated. He took a sip. The water was cool and it helped clear his rattled thoughts a bit. He downed it and put the empty glass in the sink. Ronan and Adam both stared at the dirty glass for a second.

"No one's ever going to wash that," Ronan noted, and then they went into the living room.

Like everything else in the house, it was beautiful in a rustic sort of way, with dark hardwood floors scratched from young children playing on them years ago, brown leather couches littered with patterned cushions and a giant fireplace on the outside wall. Adam felt equally jealous that Ronan was lucky enough to inherit a place that looked like this, and blessed to be given the opportunity to visit here at all. It was the furthest possible thing from Adam's old trailer park home or his excuse for an apartment at St. Agnes. He'd never even dreamed of having a place like this for himself, before going to Aglionby. He sat down on the couch by the fireplace and pulled up his knees, wrapping his arms around them in an attempt to keep warm. Ronan nodded as if Adam had asked a question.

"Yeah, I should probably build a fire."

"Wait, how long are we staying?" Adam asked. "We have school tomor-"

"Adam," Ronan said.

"Ronan."

"We are not driving all the way back to Henrietta. You have fucking perfect grades already. You can miss one day."

"So you're like, going to hold me hostage here?" Adam asked, slightly annoyed that Ronan hadn't at least informed him of this before he'd gotten himself stuck here.

"Yeah, sure." Ronan was taking logs from a metal stand in the corner and positioning them in the fireplace. Adam had to admit he was surprised that Ronan actually knew how to do anything remotely related to housework. He pointed this out.

"What? I'm not an idiot, Parrish."

"Yeah, but for some reason I always imagined you as this little rich brat with servants making your bed for you and things."

"Nope, just us," Ronan said. "I mean, Mom did all the housework though..." he trailed off, uncomfortable with the implications of connecting these two subjects. Ronan's mother was a topic both boys were always careful to steer clear of. She was alive in Cabeswater now, and Adam knew that Ronan was trying to fix things up so that she could leave, but he didn't talk about her much. Clearly the fact of her unreality was still difficult for him to process. Of course it was. And it said just as much about Ronan's father's character than it did of his mother's - what kind of man needed to dream up his own woman to marry? Ronan's father was also a conversational topic that had clear lines drawn around it. Adam was practiced in avoiding inciting people's anger. He always did his best to be diplomatic.

Ronan finished his work with the logs and retrieved some matches from the kitchen to light them on fire. Adam noted the gleeful expression that flickered over Ronan's features as he lit them, and rolled his eyes. That was so Lynch. Ronan got up off the floor and sat down on the couch beside Adam. There was a lot of space, but he sat so close their shoulders were nearly touching. Supporting his head in his palm, he leaned over and looked at Adam.

"Are you still panicking about missing class tomorrow?" he asked.

"Shut up," Adam told him.

"Man, I wish you drank," Ronan said. "You need a drink right now more than anyone."

"It's fine," Adam said. "I can catch up on the work later."

"Okay. Then stop thinking about it. I can tell you're thinking about it," Ronan chided.

"You can?" Adam raised an eyebrow. "You seem to know a lot about me." What was he doing? He knew what he was doing; he was flirting. He enjoyed the attention, and that was fair, who didn't enjoy admiration? Part of him felt that it was reckless and that he should stop, but he seemed unable to resist this. And really, what reason was there to? They were just talking. Just talking.

"Not as much as I'd like to," Ronan said, voice low. The weight of his blue-eyed gaze was concentrated fully on Adam's dirt-colored one.

"What?" Adam blurted, stupidly. Ronan looked uncomfortable. He looked at the floor and clasped his hands together, inhaling, seeming to make a decision.

"Adam," he began, "what is this to you?"

"What is what?" Adam felt a little disoriented. He wasn't sure where Ronan was planning on going with this. Was it meant to be a confession of sorts? Maybe Ronan didn't like Adam in that way, maybe Adam had been wrong all along.

"This. Us," Ronan said. He returned his eyes to staring into Adam's and leaned forward impossibly slowly. He licked his lips and left them parted, breathing through his mouth. His face was inches away from Adam's.

Adam saw two paths in front of him, in his mind. There was the first option, which involved him backing away from Ronan and telling him that he didn't know what the fuck he was talking about, and demanding that Ronan drive him back to Henrietta, and that coming here so late on had been a stupid idea all along. Then there was the second, the more truthful option, which recognized that he did not at all mind it being that way, Ronan inventing stupid schemes and Adam following. That this crazy, incredible, incalculable boy who could manifest things from his dreams had somehow become Adam's closest friend. The two of them had grown ever closer over the summer, and Adam hadn't been willing to admit to himself just how close that was.

When he looked at it that way, it wasn't really a question at all. Or at least, there was only one answer that made any sense. He took a breath, closed his eyes, and let his lips find Ronan's. Ronan exhaled sharply, as if he'd been holding the air in his lungs for a long time. Ronan's kisses were so much gentler than he'd expected of someone like him. But Adam was learning more and more every day that there was really no one else _like_ Ronan. Ronan tugged at Adam's lower tip with his teeth and pulled away, resting his forehead against Adam's.

"Adam?" he said.

"Yeah?"

"I love you," he said, then hurriedly kissed Adam again before he had time to not reply.


	3. Chapter 3

He'd seen Adam's eye's widen at those words and wondered just how freaked out he was. It hadn't felt like a big deal to Ronan to say them; they were already kissing, the _kissing_ part was what was the big deal. Surely Adam must have known the love part for weeks. Ronan doubted it was a feeling that was reciprocated - his feelings for Adam had been growing much longer than Adam's feelings for him - but he hurriedly kissed him, because the last thing in the world he wanted to hear was an obligatory declaration from Adam that was a lie. He put his hand on the side of Adam's face and held him there, kissing him harder. For so long, he had wanted to do this that the reality of it was almost too much. Even in dreams, Adam had kept him at arm's length.

But not anymore.

He tilted Adam's chin up a little and kissed a line of kisses down the side of his neck. Adam moaned and it was the most beautiful sound Ronan had ever heard the boy make. Adam was wearing what Ronan thought was a very stupid-looking plaid button down. Ronan undid the top button. Then he undid some more. He'd seen Adam shirtless many times before, but this was different, this was the two of them alone in a house far away from the rest of the world, secluded and intimate. This had both the truth of reality and the ecstasy of a dream.

He slipped Adam's shirt down around his wrists and threw it on the floor. Adam's eyes were still very, very wide. He trailed his fingers down Adam's arm. It was warm in the room from the crackling fire, but he had goosebumps.

This was real. _This was real._

He put his hands on Adam's bare chest and kissed him some more. Ronan was kneeling on the couch now, but Adam was still sitting, so it was easy to push him onto his back and position himself on top of him. By this point Adam had noticed the bulge in Ronan's jeans and was blushing; well what did the idiot expect?

"Fuck, Adam," Ronan addressed this, "it's you. Of course I am."

And they kissed, and kissed, and kissed some more. Ronan dragged his lips across Adam's chapped ones and then down his neck again, and now Adam was hard too and for some reason this made Ronan feel incredibly smug. He returned to Adam's lips, running his tongue along them and then pushing it inside. Adam was still making those little strangled noises that Ronan thought might get him off right then and there. He backed away for a second to admire the masterpiece that was Adam Parrish's face. He noticed that Adam's eyes were looking a little watery. Ronan felt a sudden hatred surge up in his chest for Robert Parrish and whoever Adam's stupid mother was. Adam had probably never felt loved or cared for in his entire life. He felt precisely the same fierce desire to protect that he had when Chainsaw had been possessed by Gwen in the cave. He also really hoped that Adam was not going to cry. That was a thing very high up on the list of Things Ronan Lynch Does Not Know How To Deal With. So he backed off, grabbing Adam's wrists and pulling him up so they were kneeling on the couch facing each other.

"Hey," he said. "I know the kissing part is new and everything, but the rest is just you and me. You gotta be used to that by now?"

"Well, it's kind of different," Adam said, "like it's sometimes just us, but a lot of the time Gansey is there or we're doing stuff for him or-"

"Oh my God, don't think about Gansey," Ronan said.

"I'm sorry," Adam said, "for being so weird about it...I just...didn't expect to..."

"Adam," Ronan said very slowly, "don't think about Gansey."

He smiled, and after a second, Adam smiled back. They sat there on the couch in Ronan's family home grinning like idiots at each other, and Ronan kept trying to convince himself that he was awake.

"Hey," Adam said breathlessly, toying with the hem of Ronan's muscle tee, "don't I get to see your tattoo?"

"Took you fucking long enough to ask, Parrish," Ronan said.

"Okay." Adam waited.

"Well, you're not going to make me do it myself, are you?"

Adam blushed again and carefully pulled the shirt over Ronan's head, tossing it next to his. For a second, both of them stared at the pile of their clothes on the floor, possibilities running quickly through their minds and slipping away like sand. This was all so new to both of them. At least he thought it was new to Adam. Was it new to Adam? He made a mental note to try and find out later, but for the moment, he didn't want to know.

Ronan looked at Adam then, raising an eyebrow, and Adam said, voice low, "okay." Ronan wasn't precisely sure what he had been asking, and Adam had probably not been sure what he was answering, but it felt like consent.

"Let's get off this stupid couch," Ronan grunted. Whatever was going to happen, it wasn't going to happen on a piece of living room furniture.

"Sure," Adam agreed. Ronan got up first and grabbed Adam's hand, pulling him up so they were standing face to face. This contact somehow felt more intimate than anything they'd done to this point. He quickly let go. Adam was breathing a little hard still, and Ronan was worried that his eyes were going to remain permanently widened if he kept them like that any longer.

"Ronan?" Adam asked.

"Yeah?"

"I think I kind of need a hug," he said, and then both of them were laughing uncontrollably.


	4. Chapter 4

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck._

What was going on? Adam wasn't sure. Was he enjoying it? Yes, definitely. But it was Ronan. Not Blue. Not some other girl. _Ronan_. And yet he felt compelled to continue this, because it was more like an especially vivid dream than a reality. Everything at Ronan's home was surreal, Ronan most of all. Adam rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his thoughts. What the hell was he doing?

No, that was a lie. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Ronan led him back through the kitchen and up a narrow set of curving stairs. Upstairs there was a dark hallway with several bedrooms leading off from it, and Ronan's room was on the end. He stopped just before his closed door. Possibly he was reconsidering this entire thing with Adam, realizing it was crazy and-

"I haven't been inside that room since..." Ronan said, and Adam realized that his hesitation had a source completely unrelated to the situation at hand. For a long time after he had met Ronan, until he'd found out the details of Niall's death, Adam had assumed Ronan was just like the other rich assholes that attended Aglionby: shallow, spoiled, naive. He had assumed that money was able to keep any possible problems a person could have at bay, and yet there was Ronan, a millionaire with the pain of entire lifetimes in his dark blue eyes.

"We don't have to-" Adam began.

"No, I want to see it," Ronan said, nodding to himself. He closed his eyes and turned the knob, edging the door slowly open. He took a deep breath, and then another one. And opened his eyes. His lips parted, his chest heaved. This was no longer just Niall that Ronan was mourning for. This was the grief over a lost lifetime, a lost person - himself, before Niall's death, before Aglionby, before his family had been torn apart from the inside out and everything he'd believed in his whole life collapsed. His mother wasn't real, his younger brother wasn't real, his father had been deceiving him and keeping secrets from him his entire life. Adam's family had been awful, but he had at least known the truth about them, and that couldn't be said for Ronan. Ronan, who hated lies more than anything.

Ronan took a step into the room, and Adam followed. Ronan closed the door behind them.

"Lock it," Adam said.

"Really, Adam?" Ronan said, but he did. Adam looked around the room, taking it in. It was smaller than he would have expected. There was a large bed, low to the floor and with a slate grey comforter. The ceiling was sloped downwards towards the dark wooden headboard. There were was a pile of clothes in one corner and a stack of what looked like discarded dream-objects in another. The walls were dark blue and undecorated, but the immense clutter of dream things, similar to the ones in Ronan's room at Monmouth - if less complex - more than made up for that. It was like stepping into Ronan's mind.

Ronan, having lost interest in the room, came up to Adam and put his hand under Adam's chin, lifting it, even though he was only an inch taller. He kissed Adam and moaned in a completely un-Lynch-like way, and then he stepped away, keeping his eyes locked on Adam's as he stepped out of his jeans and discarded them with the pile of younger Ronan's clothes.

Adam was not going to be outdone. He did the same.

And then he pushed Ronan up against the wall and kissed him. He moved his body against Ronan's, noticing the friction it created and the heat that was stirring in his groin. This was him and this was Ronan, with only the thinnest layers of fabric separating the most intimate parts of their bodies. Ronan was shivering a little. He, Adam Parrish, was having this effect on someone. Not someone. _Ronan_. He imagined for a second how he would have reacted if someone had told him this would be happening, when he first started at Aglionby. Disbelief wouldn't even have begun to cover it. But now, it felt like it would have been more ridiculous for this _not_ to have happened. He felt a sudden, intense desire to do whatever it took to make Ronan Lynch happy. And that again was a lie, because there was no way in hell that he was doing this just for Ronan. He wanted this, too. A lot.

He knelt, and this time it was Ronan's eyes that were wide. He tugged Ronan's boxers down just enough to take Ronan's dick in his mouth and suck. Ronan squirmed a little. He mussed Adam's hair with his hand, harder and harder until it really hurt. Adam ran his tongue over the tip and Ronan's breathing became louder and quicker. Every expletive in the book was leaving Ronan's beautiful lips and Adam felt pained that he could only kiss one part of Ronan's body at a time. He removed his mouth and ran his teeth lightly over the inside of Ronan's thigh.

"Hey, man, I'm not done yet," Ronan complained.

"Good," Adam said. "You can finish while you fuck me."

He stood up, smirking. Ronan opened his mouth, but no words came out. He swallowed. Finally, he managed, " _Adam._ "

"Yes?" Adam said, sweetly. Ronan gave up on trying to form a reply and pushed Adam back onto the bed. Ronan pulled his own boxers the rest of the way off and kicked them aside, and then he removed Adam's and did the same.

Then, "fuck!" he spit out. He got up off the bed and disappeared into the hall. Adam blushed, lying alone on Ronan's bed. Of course. This didn't work quite the same as how he'd imagined his first time would be. Damn, this was so much. It was overwhelming in the extreme. He was glad for the minute to compose himself before Ronan returned with the necessary item.

"I uh, found it in the bathroom," he said uncomfortably.

"Go on, then," Adam said. Ronan did, and then he laid down on his back beside Adam on the bed. The fervent heat between them had cooled just enough for them to slow down a bit, and Adam was glad of it.

"Well, Parrish," Ronan said. "We good?"

"We're good," Adam said. Ronan knelt on the bed, and then he was straddling Adam. Adam was intensely aware of their lower bodies touching, but it was his eyes that Ronan was paying attention to.

"You remember what I said before, right?" Ronan said. "I don't ever lie. _Adam_." He braced one hand on the headboard and gripped the blankets with another, and pushed himself inside Adam. They looked at each other, breathless, stunned, and then Ronan started to move in and out, faster and faster, harder and harder, because this was Ronan, and as gentle as he could be, there was always that wild spark in everything he did that was how he showed that he was alive. Adam felt a warmth spread up his spine and closed his eyes. Ronan touched them with his lips, one and then the other. And then he was kissing Adam again. _Ronan_ was kissing Adam. And much more. So much more.

When it was over, they lay there on their sides, staring at each other for several minutes. Then they fell asleep, arms around each other. Later, they were woken by a sharp ringing sound that made both of them jump. Ronan was going to leave it, but Adam said that they had been gone a long time, and Ronan really should get his phone, so he did. The volume was turned up loud enough that Adam could hear every pissed off word.

"Dude," Gansey said, "I'm in Latin. Where the hell are you?"


End file.
